


The Breaking Sword

by specialrhino



Category: Kingkiller Chronicles - Patrick Rothfuss
Genre: Alternate Character Interpretation, F/M, M/M, Storytelling, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-17
Updated: 2015-12-17
Packaged: 2018-05-07 05:27:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,998
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5444894
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/specialrhino/pseuds/specialrhino
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kvothe earned a sword in Ademre, but not the one you would think.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Breaking Sword

**Author's Note:**

  * For [machiavellijr](https://archiveofourown.org/users/machiavellijr/gifts).



> Happy Yuletide, machiavelli-jr! Your letter was what made me offer The Kingkiller Chronicles, so this was a joy to write. :)
> 
> Many darlings were killed in the making of this fic.

You are all familiar with the story of Kvothe and the Adem: he proved himself true of heart and noble of spirit, and was granted passage to their secret city and won tutelage in their clandestine ways.

You may not know that he befriended one of the Adem, a skilled warrior from beyond the mountains in the Easternmost reaches of civilization. As they weathered storms of the physical and metaphorical variety, they grew close and became blood brothers. It was this warrior that invited Kvothe back to his home to learn the secrets of his people.

But when Kvothe arrived and commenced his training, he talked to his friend not at all. He did not train with him, he did not eat with him, he no longer meditated with him.

The Adem feel friendship very deeply, so this Adem in particular was much hurt by this. After a year and a day, when the time for Kvothe's departure grew near, Kvothe tore his coat, and the Adem offered to mend it. Secretly, he sewed a pouch into the lining that, when worn for three days and three nights, cursed its owner. If Kvothe tried to mend their friendship before he left, the Adem would remove it. Kvothe did not. He wept at their parting.

"Don't worry," said Kvothe vaguely, angled toward his friend but stealing constant glances at the road. "I am sure our paths will cross again, some day."

"It is not for that, that I weep," said the Adem. He took Kvothe's hand, and looked earnestly into his eyes. Kvothe looked at the Adem as he ever did, and the Adem wished that that made up for anything. But it did not.

"What do you mean?" asked Kvothe, startled to full attention. 

"Your heart is hard and dry as the peat at our feet. You call yourself friend of many and yet are friend to none."

It was apparent from his mien that Kvothe still did not know he did wrong. The Adem dropped his hands. "I have cursed you. You will act what is on your mind and everyone will know your true nature before they get hurt by your dissembling one."

Kvothe travelled South, confused and with dampened spirits. Adem magic was not among the skills he had been taught: his own magic detected no curse, and he did not find his friend, previously so devoted to Kvothe, threatening in the least. Soon, however, the brisk air and the exaltant wonder of the open road cast their spell on him, and his friend's odd behaviour left his mind. 

He walked on for several hours, humming a happy tune, until nightfall when he smelled smoke and heard the crackling of a fire. How fortuitous, he thought to himself, for there is nothing better after a long day of walking then company around a fire and a meal one did not have to hunt for oneself.

"Hello," Kvothe hailed the traveller as he had countless strangers on the road before.

The traveller looked up from where he was turning a roasted game hen over the fire. "Well met," he said.

This was typically where Kvothe would (charmingly) make polite inquiries, comment on the weather and the state of the road, and perhaps even make a joke at the king's expense. His stomach rumbled. "Is that done yet? I want to eat it."

Kvothe was so shocked at what he had said that he didn't put up much protest when the traveller sent him on his way. He made camp alone that night.

The next time he saw another campfire, roughly the same thing happened. The time after that, he played mute and managed to get halfway through the evening before one of the company said something irritating and Kvothe punched him in the face.

Kvothe finally walked far enough for towns to be thick on the ground and began to be thrown out of bars and inns rather than cast from campfires. With each occurrence his rage grew and as his rage grew, he became more rash.

He travelled back into the wild alone to meditate. A fortnight of solitude made him feel certain of himself once more. Lulled into this false sense of self-control, he decided to go West and leave this godforsaken corner of the world, and all with whom he had quarreled within it, behind.

As if in answer to his resolution, the next day he encountered a theater troupe travelling West. He asked them if they would mind a temporary addition to their numbers, for he was a travelling lute player, and a lost one at that. It was patently true to the troupe that this was not so, for it was obvious in his bearing that he was a mercenary. This is not to say they did not take him on: a caravan can not have too much security, after all.

To their surprise, on the second night they made camp, Kvothe offered to play them a song. He pulled the most beautiful lute any had ever seen from the shabby case slung over his shoulder and played with such skill and grace all wept to hear it.

When he restored his instrument to its case, he looked once again like a shabby, friendless soldier. They decided he could not be responsible for his music, but that he had a magical lute that could make the coarsest man a skilled musician.

The next day while Kvothe went off to bathe in a nearby stream, the troupe hastily drew straws. It was the harpist's boy who drew a short straw, and that night it fell to him to put a tasteless draught in Kvothe's wine. 

Kvothe recognized the faint scent of it immediately (for Kvothe the Bloodless is well-versed in all the secrets of poison and hereby immune to many things that would kill any common man) and knew it to be a sleeping potion. He pretended to sleep heavily that night to see what they wanted. 

He was annoyed, but not too worried: none of the troupe was any match for him in a battle, and they could have poisoned him outright had they meant him harm.

Kvothe had avoided drinking the potion, but he was not immune to the warmth of the fire or the hearty stew in his belly. Soon feigned sleep turned into the real thing, and he completely missed the first soprano lifting the lute case from atop his travelling sack.

The soprano may have gotten away with it but for her own greed and impatience. For after a glance at the supine Kvothe and an encouraging nod from the troupe apothecary, she eagerly opened the case.

The wood of the lute shone lustrously in the light of the dying fire. Surely only an enchanted lute would look so handsome when carried around in a battered case on the road! Little did they know, it shone so because Kvothe treasured it highly and polished it every morning at dawn. Among all of his possessions, he loved it the best. His father had given it to him before his execution.

The soprano chuckled in triumph and plucked a string. She paused, and waited to see if a heart rending melody would pour from her hands.

Behind her, Kvothe stiffened. He became awake in the way one does when they have no idea what woke them. 

Perhaps, the soprano thought, the lute's magic needed to wake up. She strummed a chord; her face fell. The lute sounded like any other lute.

Kvothe's eyes snapped open. He saw the figures huddled near him, and heard his father's lute being handled by someone else. A haze of red clouded his vision, and it was suddenly a great struggle to think clearly. He did not remember or care who they were: they were going to pay.

Half of an hour later, Kvothe sat in front of the dwindling campfire, blood-splattered and surrounded by pieces of broken bodies. The lute sat in its open case, its lustrous body marked with a few dribbles of blood. If they weren't wiped away soon, they would linger. 

Kvothe wept. 

"Tehlu, what have I done? " he asked of the moon. "So what if I charm with my words? A man should not be judged by what is in his heart, but by what he lets out," he said to the stars. "Will I ever be myself again?" he asked and let his head hang toward the Earth in a weary parody of supplication. 

A great gust of wind kicked up, making Kvothe conscious of every drop of blood he was painted with. His hands were especially cold. And so Tehlu appeared to him.

"Indeed, a great deal must be done to make amends. There is one thing you can do to break this cantrip: you must find the key to the Earth, and with it, free the black sword that is waiting. Once you have it, you will know what to do."

Kvothe was greatly relieved by this: it sounded difficult to find, but otherwise not very challenging. His thoughts turned inward as he envisioned doing as Tehlu bade him within the next moon. 

"Thank you, my lord, for your wisdom."

"My son, it may not be a solution you wish for," said Tehlu, but Kvothe was already wiping his hands on a cloak at his feet. And then the fire crackled, and Tehlu was gone.

 

Kvothe walked the Eastern reaches for three months and a day, trying to find someone who knew anything of the key to the Earth. He kept to himself, sleeping outdoors every night and earning coin with his lute, and in this manner refrained from hurting anyone else despite his growing frustration at the lack of fruit his efforts bore.

On this particular afternoon, he made camp early in order to savagely hack at a fallen tree in the forest he had glimpsed from the road. He told himself it was for firewood, but the wood was too wick for burning. The task nonetheless brought him great satisfaction.

It was then that who came upon him but his beloved, Denna. Kvothe saw Denna as a kindred spirit and fellow wanderer through life; but she was in fact a demon he had unknowingly bound to one form. He -"

"What's this, now? A demon?" Tommen the merchant said once he got over choking on his beer.

"To be sure," said Phrixus, dabbing beer off his face with a handkerchief. He was unbearably haughty. He had been a late addition to the travelling party, and no one in the caravan liked him much, but he told good stories.

Merek scoffed and leaned forward to see around the burly horsemaster sitting next to him. "The Lady Denna 'ent no demon."

"There you are mistaken, my friend, for she wasn't a lady at all," Phrixus said unhelpfully. The stern faces around the table showed this would be a sticking point for his listeners. He sighed longsufferingly. 

Phrixus gestured to the innkeeper's help, who looked surprised to be summoned. The youth's easy charm from when he'd served them a half of an hour ago was dimmed, and at the moment he looked dreadfully pale and upset. "You must hear a lot of stories passing through. Lady Denna was a demon, wasn't she?" He didn't bother to elaborate. He'd never met an innkeeper that hadn't had half an ear on his patrons' conversation.

"I've never heard that one," the assistant said once he'd composed himself. A devilish smile unfurled on his lips. "But everyone in these parts knows that Kvothe the Bloodless met a demon, tamed it, and now -" he leaned in conspiratorially, "he calls it pupil."

"What?" said Tommen. "You're pulling our legs. Who told you that?"

The rest of the table looked skeptical but intrigued, some of them gearing up for an argument. Phrixus felt in danger of losing his audience. "Shush, all of you. Do you want to hear it or not?"

 

As for Denna being a demon, it went like this: Kvothe met a demon on a path to Ralien almost three years before our tale (what he was doing in Ceald is a story for another night). It had taken the guise of a young woman. He asked for and misheard her name as Denna, and called her by that for the evening. And by the end of the night, Denna was what she was; for something named thrice under the new moon becomes so for three years and three days.

Kvothe was unaware of this, for it was old, old magic, forgotten by all but storytellers. They shared a campfire that night, and the demon slipped away before morn.

Kvothe and the demon tried to forget one another, but fascination drew their paths to cross again and again, for the bonds of maker and made stand as strong as roah wood.

 

Their meeting this time was a usual one with an unusual twist.

Upon Denna's appearance, Kvothe first lit up but then threw out his hands and groaned in dismay. "No, Denna, you must not see me like this!"

"What’s the matter?"

"I am worried about what I may do to you," said Kvothe. "For I am under a curse that makes it difficult to control my actions. I value your good opinion above all others and I could not bear to lose it."

Denna frowned. "Can it be broken?"

"Only by finding the sword of the Earth," Kvothe said bitterly.

"You must go to the king then," said Denna, for she had walked the world for centuries and was wise beyond mortal ken. She had also happened to spend her years as a human insinuating herself in many courts and picking up on gossip.

"The king?"

"Yes, the first of his line granted one of the Fae a great boon and his house has borne the key of the Earth ever since."

Kvothe, overcome by relief and gratitude, reached out and stroked Denna's cheek. "You are as beautiful as you are intelligent, my radiant flame. You burn brighter than any other I have known."

"Kvothe," was all Denna said, for he had never spoken so plainly to her before. She now believed his account of the curse, but did not mind it.

He fingered a lock of her hair. "Now," he said, "would that I were nobly born and could shower you in the riches you deserve."

She took his hand and pressed it to her breast. "This heart beats because of you," she said, quite literally, for most demons have no heartbeat. She meant it metaphorically as well, however, because she had come to admire and love Kvothe over the years, as a dangerous thing respects power in others.

Kvothe kissed her then, as he had never dared to before, and found his passion matched and, he was convinced, his feelings returned. If only he were released from the curse, he would be the happiest man in all of the Four Corners. But happiness is not for the great, and the curse was not yet broken.

 

And so Kvothe secured an audience with the king, and confided in him the object of his quest.

"I will lend you use of this key," the king said, "if you are able to make the tree in the courtyard grow. My daughter has been struck by a great illness and grows weaker each day the tree is not restored." He led them out to the palace's main courtyard and gestured to a linden tree, huge and many branched.

It was bent over like an old man against a wind, and so withered it looked hollow. Its leaves were blackening from the stems rather than the tips, and it looked like no illness that struck in nature. The illness wasn't natural, for it was being poisoned by someone in court out of jealousy.

Kvothe spoke the name of the tree, and the tree answered him.

"There is a poison in my roots," it said in the language of living things.

"What can I do?" asked Kvothe. "What is poisoning you?"

"You must gather a burning secret, hot as flame; a scale of dragon, young and tame; and the tears of a man that never cries, lives unburdened and never sighs." As for the second question, the tree did not have the words to tell him. Human intentions and actions are beyond the understanding of a tree. 

"But what is poisoning you?" Kvothe asked again.

"Once cured, the poison will hurt me no more," was all it said, before it gave a nigh imperceptible shiver and settled in what to a human being would appear a fatigued slouch. It did not speak again.

 

"A burning secret? Wasn’t it the still beating heart of a king's youngest daughter?" Tommen wanted to know.

Gareth, one of the horsemasters, leaned across the table and flicked him on the eyebrow. "No, you idiot, the youngest daughter is the one that's being saved."

"I thought Denna _was_ the king's youngest daughter," said Gareth's brother Kristofer.

"Quiet, you lot," Marek said irritably, elbowing Gareth and shooting Tommen a dirty look. Phrixus gave him a grateful nod and continued his tale.

 

Kvothe's preternatural luck held, for it transpired there was a jester in court that boasted of being the happiest man alive. By his account, he had never shed a tear.

That night, Kvothe said he would play for the court. He pulled out his lute, which he guarded jealously since that night on the road and began to play. He played song after song, and soon every person in court wept except for the jester. This made Kvothe very angry, in part because he wanted this task over with, but also because he had no small pride in his skills as a musician. 

At the end of two hours, Kvothe had had enough. "If he will not cry from excess feeling," Kvothe said quietly to himself, "I will beat him until he weeps and begs me to stop."

He stood to do just that, but Denna grabbed his sleeve. "Your old self would not be happy with this solution."

Kvothe snarled at her, but she met his gaze steadily until he came back to himself a little.

"There are tears not born from pain or suffering - could you not collect tears of mirth, instead?"

And so Kvothe sat back down, surly, -- for he was still in danger of enacting his initial plan -- and called on the name of the wind to tickle the jester until tears streamed from his eyes and he begged Kvothe stop.

 

The next morning, Kvothe readied himself for a great journey, for everyone knows dragons only nest with their young at the top of the highest mountains. He bid Denna goodbye at breakfast.

 

Tommen snorted loudly. "We know no such thing."

Everyone glared at him.

Marek kicked him under the table. “Cut it out, Tommen.”

 

"But where are you going?" asked Denna. "What is the next part of the antidote?"

"To find a baby dragon," Kvothe answered. "I need one of its scales, though it may take me many months."

Denna hesitated for a moment and thought. Dragon scales have strong protective qualities, and when bound to human form, Denna was as weak as any mortal. She had only her knowledge of Yllish magic and human nature to protect her.

But she could feel the end of her days bound as a mortal grow near. The feeling had grown so strong in her that she was sure it was only a matter of days before she would be immortal yet again. This was, in fact, why she had come across Kvothe yet again. She wanted to tell Kvothe everything, but there was no knowing how he would react if he learned it all while under the influence of the curse. 

He needed to break it, and soon.

With this in mind, she drew a chain from around her neck. It held a single dragon scale, like an obsidian teardrop. It twinkled in the light as it swung between them. 

Kvothe took her hand and kissed her fingertips. “My good luck charm,” he called her, and laughed in joy. All he had left to gather was the secret, and he had identified it already. He had spent the better part of the night trying not to think of it, in fact, because it was such a burden.

He wanted to heal the tree immediately, but Denna convinced him to sit for the rest of breakfast and wait until the king had eaten.

Finally, the king and his various hangers-on were all assembled in the courtyard, and Kvothe was allowed to complete his task.

He lay the dragon's scale on the tree and whispered the words that lay, scorching, in his heart. They burnt his tongue coming out. The tree was instantaneously engulfed in flames. There was a merry crackling as its withered leaves and branches crumbled into flaming ash.

Gasps from the onlookers, a worried frown from a courtier.

"Sir, are you sure...?" the courtier murmured to the king, for, jealous that the princess would not accept his suit, he was the one who was poisoning the tree.

The ground grew hot, forcing spectators to trip backwards across to the safety of the portico ringing the courtyard. Here and there, the dirt was but a thin layer and allowed the fire's glow to shine through.

Kvothe poured the tears onto a root - one drop, two drops, three, and then the fire vanished, leaving the tree, pruned but tall and strong. As he watched, a single white flower unfurled on a branch. The court clapped politely. The king fell to the ground and wept in gratitude. The court insisted on having a feast to celebrate, but this only made Kvothe impatient.

Denna, too, was very impatient, for her time in her form was growing shorter. She was not certain how much time she had left as a mortal, or what would become of her once it was up.

But even with a considerable amount of urging, it took several hours for the king to leave his revived daughter's side and travel to the place where lay the hole that fit the key of the Earth.

Kvothe was surprised by this last detail. "Surely you can make a keyhole wherever you are by digging into the ground?"

"There is protocol to be followed," said the king, and he was right, for it would be very rude to demand the Earth open anywhere one pleased. 

After what felt an age, the king's carriage came to a stop in a crowded town center. Kvothe sprang forth, and the king and Denna followed suit. A handful of carriages packed with curious members of the court pulled up just after.

The king walked into the center of the town square. Even as a king, this took several minutes, for the square was large and people were packed in tightly. On a day like this, the king did not hold to ceremony and had only two bodyguards to clear his way.

Eventually he came to the fountain at the center of the square, a whitewashed figure of Taborlin the Great fighting a sea serpent. He gestured for Kvothe to lean in next to him. After a careful prod at the foot of the statue, Taborlin's ankle bone swung away, its hinges cleverly hidden, to reveal a keyhole. Underneath the whitewash, the statue seemed to have been chiselled from the Earth itself, the entire fountain a part of the ground and washed over to resemble marble.

The king reached beneath his shirt to produce his key. It was small, black, and caught the light in the same way Denna’s necklace had. Kvothe's hands itched to grab it from him and shove the key home. To finally seize the sword Tehlu had said would solve his problems.

Before the king could lift the chain of his necklace over his head, something shoved into Kvothe and knocked him down. A feminine scream rent the air. He turned, and his brain couldn’t comprehend what he was seeing for a moment.

Denna was lying on the ground, hair crumpled around her, an arrow clean through her shoulder. The fletching was white and pristine, and her dress, once the same, was scrunched with dirt and rapidly darkening.

This couldn't be happening.

As he watched, she twisted and slumped onto her back, screaming as the arrow pushed further through her body.

Kvothe knelt over her, praying, as her lifeblood drained from her veins and stained the cobblestones. There was a reassuring smile on her face, for the three years and three days were moments from being up, and she would once again be restored to her true self. She tried to speak, but Kvothe was too busy rocking and weeping and trying to patch her wound to heed.

He should have been beyond all sense, but some traitorous part of him, an unquenchable survival instinct he cursed to this day, sharpened his hearing. A sound from his right caught his attention and, reflexes heightened by sheer rage, he caught the second arrow aimed for him, the brother of the one in Denna's chest. Oh, would that he had let it do its job. His eyes traced the arrow to its source and saw a noble from the court, the blond gentleman who had sat at the king's right side during the feast.

Kvothe stalked towards him through the fleeing crowd, and the fool held his ground.

He raised his crossbow to Kvothe's advancing chest. Kvothe didn't bother pushing it away. Instead, he grabbed the man's hand and crushed it.

The man let out an inhuman scream, but Kvothe was beyond hearing. He called upon the powers of lightning and burrowed his hand into his chest. Blood gushed forth. Kvothe withdrew his hand and dropped the still-warm corpse like a child discarding soiled clothes.

He turned back to where he had left Denna, and saw only a puddle of crimson sluggishly expanding on the empty ground. Where had she gone? He made to rush back to that spot but was blocked by the king, who was rooted to the ground in shock. For a moment and by a trick of the light, he looked very old and withered, like the tree. "You- my courtier - " Kvothe tried to wave the king away, but the king grabbed his arm, still not understanding what had happened.

Kvothe shook him off violently. It wasn't enough. He made a chopping motion with his hand, and his magic cut the king in half. He could not see Denna. She was truly lost to him. He ran to the spot where she had fallen. There was no blood trail anywhere. He advanced again on the shorn body of the king and kicked it, once, twice, picking up and throwing the lower half of the body, which met the ground with a sickening crunch.

It was this sound that brought him back to himself. He stood, panting, in front of the silent square of people. His clothes swung heavily as he moved, thrice covered in life's-end blood.

No one dared stir. Even the wind was holding its breath.

He plucked the key from the royal corpse and turned it in the Earth, shaking with residual rage. The great paved stones roiled and cracked and up from the ground emerged a black sword.

Kvothe the Kingslayer fell to his knees in front of it and placed a trembling hand on it as if for support. From the moment he touched the sword, a hollowness stole into his heart, leeching away his rage and sorrow, yes, but also his love and the heat of the sunshine on his face.

He knew the sword for what it was, and he howled his grief. For it was a sword meant for breaking, as many swords are, but it was also a sword of broken things. 

Amid the hush, one person dared stepped forward and helped him to his feet. He strapped the sword to Kvothe's back. Kvothe knew he would bear it and remain broken until the day they both returned to the Earth.

And so Kvothe walks the world devoid of passion, whether it be anger or love or magic. It cannot be said he is dead, but neither, is he truly alive; his true name he changed to shadowless, for he moves along the Earth but leaves no trace.

 

Silence spooled throughout the room, the epilogue of any well crafted tale. Phrixus took a draught of ale and hid his smug smile behind the rim of his tankard.

"What happened to the demon?" asked Gareth.

"It died, didn't it?" said Marek.

Kristofer scratched his beard. "I thought it got its shape back, was finally free and went on its way."

"No, no, no," the innkeeper's assistant said, sitting down. His posture was all langour, but there was an edge to his expression that made Phrixus wary. "The demon still loved him desperately and vowed to stay with him until the flame of his mortal life guttered out."

"But," said Tommen, "why would it do that?"

The innkeeper's assistant laughed an oddly bitter laugh. "Love strikes all creatures, merchant.”

There came the clatter of footsteps on the stairs and the innkeeper appeared, lifting his dull stare to their party. “Bast! Have you done the inventory?” he called out.

The innkeeper’s assistant’s world weary mien instantly transformed into one of solicitude. “Yes, Reshi.”

Tommen watched as the innkeeper’s assistant - Bast - leaned over the counter to murmur to the innkeeper. He wondered briefly what had planted the seed of bitterness in one so young, but then lost the thought with the next round.

“So,” said Phrixus, and everyone in the party leaned in, in anticipation. “Let me tell you the tale of the execution of Kvothe’s father…”


End file.
